HURRAY, THE NIGERIAN GENDER MOVEMENT CELEBRATES AS ESTHER EGHOBAMIEN-MSHELIA IS ELECTED TO THE UN CEDAW COMMITTEE FOR FOUR YEARS (2023 -2026) writes Lady Nkiru Celine Okoro.
Three Months after the Nigerian Gender Bill was thrown out of the ninth National Assembly, failing in over two decades of uninterrupted democratic governance to scale through constitutional review, The Nigerian gender movement has reason to celebrate.
ESTHER EGHOBAMIEN-MSHELIA was on Wednesday, June 22, 2022, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York elected to the UN Committee on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) to occupy one of the 12 vacant seats in a keenly contested election.
She scored 137 votes out of 187 votes but needed only 94 votes to be elected to the 23-member CEDAW expert committee from 2023 to 2026.
ESTHER EGHOBAMIEN-MSHELIA
The UN CEDAW expert committee is the body of independent experts that monitor the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in all the 194 UN member Nations.
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), was adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly. It is described as an international bill of rights for women, and Consists of a preamble and 30 articles, that define what constitutes discrimination against women and sets up an agenda for national action to end such discrimination.
The Convention defines discrimination against women as “…any distinction, exclusion or restriction made based on sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field.”
Nigeria is a state party to UNCEDAW Convention, having ratified same in 1985 without reservation, signed the Optional Protocol to the Convention in 2000, and ratified it in 2004.
Sadly, this has not translated to equal and equitable rights for Nigerian Women. The lives of Nigerian women are yet to attain a commensurate level of improvement. Women rank lower than men in all indices of development in the country.
In March 2022, the Nigerian gender bill, that articulated a five-point agenda for Nigerian women was thrown out of the ninth National Assembly Constitution Amendment:
The reason why the gender bill failed to scale through the review process ranged from the patriarchal mindset, disdain for affirmative action, and ignorance of the impact of the gender bill on the overall development of the country.
With less than 5% female representation in the National Assembly, male legislators who constitute over 90% of the National Assembly were not convinced of the importance and relevance of women’s bill of rights to the development of the country.
In an interview, Senator Abiodun Olujimi representing Ekiti South Senatorial District revealed that “Nigerian male legislators were set on what they wanted to do” and they simply had their way.
Olujimi, who described the failure of the bills as a sad commentary, noted that it was disheartening that “no single bill for the women sailed through.”
Nigerian women’s gender agenda 2022 that translated to the 2022 gender bill included the need for 35% affirmative action on all appointive and elective positions in the country’s governance structure, the concept of twinning that mandates alternate positions based on gender considerations such that if a Chairman of a local government is a woman, the vice automatically should be a man and vice versa.
Others include the recognition of indiginship for women who are married outside their communities and states to have the same and equal rights and recognition in the communities of their marriage equivalent to them their rights of indiginship and the right of Nigerian women to transfer their nationality to their husbands in the same way Nigerian men transfer their rights of nationality to their foreign/non-Nigerian wives.
With a foremost gender activist in the person of ESTHER EGHOBAMIEN-MSHELIA in the UNCEDAW Expert Committee, we hope she would pull her full weight and expertise to mount global pressure on Nigeria to indeed accent Nigeria Women’s gender agenda as their rights.